Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site.

This week’s question is:

What were summers like when you were a kid? Did your family have any particular traditions? Did you sleep ’til noon or get up early? Did you attend camps? Spend lots of time at the pool? Was it a neighborhood pool or in your backyard? Did you take swimming lessons? Did you live near a beach? (And do you call it the beach or the coast?!) Did you attend VBS (Vacation Bible School)? Did your library have a reading program that you participated in? What types of prizes were available? Did you get to buy treats from the ice cream truck? Did your family go on vacations? If so, what is a memorable one? Do you associate any particular songs with summer?

I remember most summers as being fairly laid back. We slept late, played with friends, rode bikes, had sleepovers, went to amusement parks. It was hot in southern Texas — I remember the whir of oscillating fans while trying to sleep and getting annoyed by the buzzing of mosquitoes close to my ear. I thought my aunt’s house with central air conditioning was quite luxurious. The city pool and the beaches at Padre Island were welcome relief. No swimming lessons, though: I still don’t know how to swim. I loved to read as a child, but I don’t remember if there were summer reading programs. Ice cream truck music was the highlight of a summer day.

Our family didn’t “go” and “do” much. We never went to vacation spots on vacation: we always took road trips to see relatives. I did attend VBS, Girl Scout camp, and later church camps.

Besides going to the beach, we didn’t really have any summer traditions except that on the Fourth of July my dad splurged on fire works. He always bought a few of the really big kind as well as sparklers, bottle rockets, etc.

One highlight of every summer was my birthday in August. School didn’t start until September when I was a child, so my late August birthday was kind of a last hurrah of the summer: when I was a sophomore school started actually on my birthday. I always liked that my birthday was in a month with no other major holidays.

Probably my most memorable summer activities involved road trips with my father’s mother. She had kids in Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama, and for several years she drove to visit them over the course of the summer. We used to call her the Galloping Grandma. 😀 I don’t know how many years I went with her as company or how long we were gone at a time. All but one family had cousins my age, so I had someone to play with at each spot. I remember feeling very special to travel with my Grannie. I also remember learning the hard way not to leave crayons in the car: they melted. Thankfully they were in a plastic case and didn’t ruin her car.

Thanks, Linda, for suggesting this trip down memory lane!